Active travel to school: a longitudinal millennium cohort study of schooling outcomes

OBJECTIVES: Assess longitudinal associations between active travel during the school commute and later educational outcomes. SETTING: England, Wales and Northern Ireland. PARTICIPANTS: 6778 children, surveyed at ages 7, 11, 14 and 17. PRIMARY AND SECONDARY OUTCOMES: School-leaver General Certificate of Secondary Education exam scores summed to provide a single measure of educational success. RESULTS: Controlling a range of sociodemographic and health variables, using active versus passive travel modes during a child’s commute to school during earlier years predicted differences in school-leaver exam performance at age 16. These effects were mediated through changes in self-esteem, emotional difficulties and behavioural difficulties. Examples include: being driven to school at 11 was associated with improved exam performance at 16 mediated through enhanced self-esteem at 14 (ab=0.08, 95% CI=0.01 to 0.20, p=0.05) and cycling at 14 was associated with better exam scores at 16 mediated through reduced emotional difficulty at 16 (ab=0.10, 95% CI=0.01 to 0.30, p=0.05). The relationship between travel mode and exam performance was moderated by household income quintile, most notably with poorer exam performance seen in high-income children who were driven to school. Importantly, although our model predicted 21% of variance in exam performance, removing travel mode barely reduced its ability to predict exam scores (ΔR (2)=−0.005, F (20,6469) = 2.50, p<0.001). CONCLUSION: There are differences in school-leaver exam performance linked to travel mode choices earlier in the school career, but these differences are extremely small. There appears to be no realistic educational disadvantage from any given travel mode, strengthening the case for cleaner, healthier modes to become the default.